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"It obviously had huge implications for the city centre, not just from a retail point of view but for parking because any new development was going to come with a new multi-storey car park too.

"I remember the council's director of industrial development submitting a report saying it was basically a choice between re-developing the Edwin Davis site in Bond Street or the dock and if we did the dock then the Edwin Davis site would probably stand empty for years.

"He favoured Edwin Davis but the group eventually supported the dock, although he ended up being right about the Edwin Davis site."

An empty Princes Dock in 1987 before building work started on Princes Quay (Image: Hull Daily Mail)

Despite the decision, there were voices of opposition within the Labour group.

"Some people were against it," said Cllr Black. "I supported it but the view across the dock from Monument Bridge had been there for decades and many people had a strong affinity with it. My granddad had been a captain on one of the ships in there so I had lot of memories of it as a child."

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The national watchdog body for design refused to back either scheme having previously given its support for plans put forward by one of the other rejected developers.

As local conservation campaigners called for a re-think, Lincolnshire architect Richard Graham described the two shortlisted schemes as "gross and inept".

This proposed design by Hull architects Elsworth Sykes failed to make the final shortlist (Image: Peter Harbour)

His intervention was significant having previously been a member of a consortium brought together by the city council to design outline plans for the entire town docks estate after it had been bought by the authority in the 1970s.

Eventually, the council asked the two firms to tweak their designs before choosing Teesland to build the £50m complex.

Cllr Black believes the current debate over retail development in the city centre mirrors the views from four decades ago.

"When I hear all the talk now about empty shops now and how shopping has declined in the city centre I remind people that if you tried putting all the square footage of shops in Princes Quay and St. Stephen's into the city centre of 1984 it would be bursting at the seams."

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